Study completed in the fall of 2009 for the academic year 2008-2009

Methodology | Significant Findings | Findings

METHODOLOGY

In October of 2009, students selected random issues of the Technician printed within the last 12 months. Using an online analysis form, they determined the number of sources in a story and cataloged the sources as indicated. University data was obtained for the fall of 2009 through the University’s Department of Planning and Analysis.

• F2009 — 1,449 sources analyzed
• F2008 — 1,478 sources analyzed
• F2007 — 2,971 sources analyzed
• F2006 — 2,970 sources analyzed
• F2005 — 1,147 sources analyzed

Methodology | Significant Findings | Findings

SIGNIFICANT FINDINGS

There is some GOOD STUFF happening at the Technician.

• The percentage of sources from Engineering increased.
• The racial diversity of our sources better mirrors the campus.
• The racial diversity of the staff continues to increase and better reflect that of campus.
• The proportion of African-American sources declined slightly, better reflecting the proportion of the campus that is African-American.
• The number of stories with more than three sources increased slightly.
• The number of stories with no sources dropped significantly from last fall.

Making such changes in five years is impressive, and, definitely, it’s much harder now for people to argue that the content of the paper doesn’t reflect the campus. It does. The staff leaders should be congratulated for their efforts in the areas noted.

There are a few notable AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT as well.

• The gender breakdown of our staff does not reflect the campus with significantly more females on staff than males, a change from past years.
• The gender breakdown of our sources is still predominantly male. The gender breakdown of the staff does not reflect the campus.
• The racial breakdown of our sources reflected a significant increase in Caucasian sources, not reflecting the campus.
• Sources from CALS, Management and Engineering are still significantly under-represented although Engineering made gains.
• Sources from CHASS are still significantly over-represented (by the largest order of magnitude of any college).
• Nearly half of the fall 2010 staff (47%) had been on staff for less than one semester.
• Nearly half of the fall 2010 staff (48%) had any mass media experience in high school or college.

Specific RECOMMENDATIONS include…

• Recruitment needs to focus on those with previous experience at whatever level.
• Retention efforts need to continue.
• Recruit a more “conservatives” to staff.
• Recruit a racially diverse staff although this year’s staff is more diverse than in any of past years.
• Increase use of Hispanics as sources.
• Use more female sources.
• Specifically, sports reporters need to use more female sources.
• Specifically, we need more columnists who are females.
• Reporters need to use more students as sources, students who are involved in the topic of the story.
• Reporters need to avoid using CNN.COM, the News & Observer and other media as “sources.” By one count, 10 percent of sources were Web sites last year. Using another methodology, that number increased to about 35 percent.
• Reporters need to use more faculty and less staff as sources. The student body president and other Student Government officials remain over-quoted.
• Reporters need to use students in CHASS less as sources.
• Reporters need to use Engineering and CALS students more as sources.
• Writers/editors need to include name, classification and major for all sources.
• All sources need to be identified by name, classification and major to avoid mis-identification.
• Ensure that all stories have at least three valid sources representing all sides of the story.

Methodology | Significant Findings | Findings

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

EXPERIENCE

• 48% of the staff members said they had no experience in journalism prior to coming to work for the Technician (60.3% in fall of 2007, 54.1% in fall of 2008)
• 25% of the staff members said they worked on their high school newspaper before coming to work for the Technician (27% in the fall of 2007, 27.9% in the fall of 2008)
• 47% of the staff said they had been on staff less than one semester (42.9%in the fall of 2007, 47.5% in the fall of 2008)
• 18% of the staff said they had been on staff more than three semesters (18%in the fall of 2007, 18% in the fall of 2008)

Recommendations:

• Recruitment needs to focus on those with previous experience at whatever level.
• Retention efforts need to continue.

ELECTION STATISTICS

Because the national election was still fresh on our minds, we had an opportunity to compare the staff to the campus. The staff continued to lean more “liberal” than the campus, significantly more “liberal” than in 2008.

• Staff: 65.6% for Obama (up from 58.7% in 2008) (The campus was 52.9% for Obama.)
• Staff: 67.2% Democrat (up from 58.5%in 2008) (The campus was 51.4% Democrat.)

Recommendations:

• Recruit a more “conservatives” to staff as a high priority.

While Caucasians still represent the largest portion of the staff (72.1%), the other groups represent a larger portion of the staff than in past years.

RACE

1. Reporters’ use of Caucasian sources increased significantly over the previous year with 78.9 percent of sources being Caucasian compared to 72.8 percent of campus.
2. Reporters’ use of African-American sources decreased to 11.4 percent compared to 8 percent of the population.
3. Reporters use of Hispanic sources (1.75%) showed that Hispanics were under-represented as sources.
4. In 29 percent of sources, race could not be determined either through a photograph or identifying characteristics in the story. This means that for a signficiant number of our stories, race plays no factor in the selection of sources.
5. 72.1 percent of the staff was Caucasian (76.4% in 2008)
6. 8.2 percent of the staff was Asian (12.7% in 2008)
7. 9.8 percent of the staff was black (6.3% in 2008)
8. 8.2 percent of the staff was Hispanic (6.3% in 2008)

Recommendations:

• Recruit a racially diverse staff although this year’s staff is more diverse than in any of past years.
• Increase use of Hispanics as sources.

The staff is 55.7% female and 44.3% male, almost the reverse of the campus community.

GENDER

1. Reporters’ use of male sources (64.2%) exceeds the population (55% male), significantly more than last year. This is a reversal of a trend we’d been seeing over the past four years. By section, the numbers are about the same (+/- 1%) as last year except the number of males in sports stories increased by almost 5 percent.

• News stories: 64.4% male
• Opinion: 65.6% male
• Sports: 63.2% male

49.2 percent of the staff is male, a significant decrease from last year’s 52 percent.

Recommendation:

• Use more female sources.
• Specifically, sports reporters need to use more female sources.
• Specifically, we need more columnists who are females.

Unlike many past semesters, the staff is almost equally divided between, freshmen (31.1%), sophomores (21.3%), juniors (23.0%) and seniors (23.0%) with graduate students making up only 1.6% of the staff.

CLASSIFICATION

1. The number of “staff” as sources decreased to 19 percent of all sources, meaning about one out of every five sources was a University staff member, not faculty or students.
2. Seniors topped juniors as the class most represented as sources. Last year, juniors, for the first time, out-represented seniors.
3. Freshmen represent the largest percentage of staff members (31.1%) (last year, sophomores, 30.2%). Seniors represent 23 percent.

Recommendations:

• Reporters need to use more students as sources, students who are involved in the topic of the story.
• Reporters need to avoid using CNN.COM, the News & Observer and other media as “sources.” By one count, 10 percent of sources were Web sites last year. Using another methodology, that number increased to about 35 percent.
• Reporters need to use more faculty and less staff as sources. The student body president and other Student Government officials remain over-quoted.

COLLEGE

1. The College of Humanities and Social Sciences was significantly over-represented for the fourth consecutive year. CHASS students were used as sources at a rate not-quite double their population on campus.
2. Students in the College of Engineering were under-represented in the paper as were students in agriculture and life sciences (CALS).
3. Although all sources are supposed to be identified by name, classification and major, the college could be determined for only 50 percent of the sources.
4. 36.5 percent of the staff is in CHASS. The next largest college represented on staff is engineering, with 22.2 percent, followed by Design with 11.1 percent.

Recommendation:

• Reporters need to use students in CHASS less as sources.
• Reporters need to use Engineering and CALS students more as sources.
• Writers/editors need to include name, classification and major for all sources.
• All sources need to be identified by name, classification and major to avoid mis-identification.

Selected staff comments on how to improve coverage of CALS and Engineering.

• Encourage recruitment from these colleges so ties with them will be stronger.
• Make sure to send reporters and photographers out to events occurring in these colleges.
• Have an Engineering, PAMS, CALS and/or research beat, weekly section or Focused.
• Hang fliers advertising positions on the Technician in hopes of getting interested students from these colleges. If we had an inside worker, we could have a better idea of what to write about.
• Contact organizations within this college and get their calendar of event at the beginning of each semester.
• Do more coverage on events on Centennial Campus.
• When it’s down to the wire, we tend to call up our friends for student sources. Since we often befriend the people we have the most contact with, that leads to a lot of CHASS sources. If we start earlier (easier said than done), we’ll have time to contact a more diverse representation of the student body.
• It would help to have more studnets writing from these colleges, those with a vested interest in what is going on. Also, our news staff has what seems to be an inefficient beat and budget system, likely due to a lack of writers. A solid writer on the PAMS and CALS beat would be the best solution to this problem.
• Have a beat writer to follow these schools. Be more aware of recent and upcoming events and milestones for these colleges.
• Go to the actual buildings where most of those students are for interviews.
• The problem with covering these colleges is a matter of a “typical” approach to finding angles for news or opinion. Sure, a feature story with an eye-catching design on some of the achievements or recent studies from these colleges is fairly easy to plan and execute, but it’s a very narrow approach to these fields. Our coverage should shift to emphasizing student organizations within these colleges and showing the other side of the college — e.g., placing them within the broader scheme of University politics or tying a field of study to the daily events on campus as covered by existing news. Keeping writers on a beat system to encourage regular contacts and establish rapport with these colleges is definitely a step in the right direction.
• The colleges need to do a better job of communicating with the newspaper perhaps a weekly phone call to the college publicity contacts asking them what’s going on would work. Also, try to make friends with the top administrative assistant at the college so that they know there’s always an open line. Most importantly: MAKE SURE YOU FOLLOW THROUGH WITH A FACTUALLY ACCURATE REPORT. Nothing discourages the colleges to reaching out to the Technician more than a story full of misinformation and straight up twisted or wrong quotes…they don’t want to deal with student media if the paper is more trouble than it’s worth
• Increase the number of these students on the news staff. Advertise more to this group.
• Sections focused on science and technology running more often. More viewpoints about these subjects with professor interviews. Also a section on innovative design could showcase genetically modified plants, green architecture, string theory breakthroughs, etc.
• We could recruit more staff members from those specific colleges. They could then interview people from their classes and etc.
• Coverage of these colleges could be improved in the features section. There are a ton of cool student organizations in engineering that compete with schools around the nation such as the ASCE and the ASME.
• Having specific writers focused on those colleges.

SOURCES

• 2004-2005 — 3.00
• 2005-2006 — 3.29
• 2006-2007 — 3.01
• 2007-2008 — 2.41
• 2008-2009 — 2.49

Recommendation:

• Ensure that all stories have at least three valid sources representing all sides of the story.